"NPO p MN"

"NPO p MN" usually doctors orders that I give to my patients before surgery, before a procedure, before a lab draw... For those who don't know it means, NPO stands for nul per os (Latin for nothing by mouth), p = post (Latin for after) and MN a medical abbreviation for 'midnight.'

I haven't ever been on the receiving end of such doctors orders. I enforce these orders, so to be on the other end of the spectrum feels so odd, so foreign to me.

After a bad day working on my floor at the hospital, when I am almost in tears from frustration and or despair, a coworker used to say, "You have to remember that it is always a good day when you are the one that's not in the hospital bed." (CW) And I lived by this quote. Because no matter how hard I had it, the sick people I cared for, always had it worse.

In 10 hours more or less, it will be me in the hospital bed...

I admit that I am scared. I am nervous and so very anxious. But I know that the procedure is medically necessary and also emotionally necessary. It will remove from me any remainder of this pregnancy which once brought the most immense joy but then also the most immense devastation. I hope it will allow us to start rebuilding our lives and also our future.

For Jeffrey and I, the healing cannot truly commence till my procedure is over. I think and I hope from then onward, we can finally start picking up the shards and shattered pieces of our broken hearts...